Vacation, and supporting the indies.

I've just returned from spending seven days in the south and am currently:

1. Freezing.
2. Craving fried green tomatoes and sweet tea.
3. Longing for an independent bookstore in my town as cool as the one they've got in Asheville, North Carolina.

In fact, I'm longing for an indie bookstore in my town, period. But that's a story for another day.

I hadn't been to Asheville in 11 years, and the one thing everyone told me was that I had to visit Biltmore, George Washington Vanderbilt's 8,000 acre Gilded Age estate. I didn't end up going there, of course. It was almost $60 for a ticket, and I'm not willing to spend almost $60 just to go look at opulence.

So, I went instead to the boarding house where author Thomas Wolfe grew up, and then directly to Malaprop's Bookstore/Cafe, where I grabbed a blackberry Italian soda and then spent over an hour walking around, taking books off the shelf and then putting them back, over and over again, thanks to this internal debate:

Me: You do not need more books.
Myself: No, but I like books.
Me: You have two library cards. You work for a library system.
Myself: My library isn't going to have this cookbook from a local restaurant.
Me: These are full price. If you insist on buying these, at least write down the titles and get them deeply discounted from Amazon later.
Myself: But I want to support the indies!
Me: You already bought a soda. You've done your part.

This went on.

Eventually, I did buy the books, shiny and new, which was harder to do than I expected. I've gotten so used to buying used, or buying from Amazon, that paying full price seemed like extravagance. And in fact, my bookstore tab was the same amount as my ticket to Biltmore would have been, so I guess I am willing to spend almost $60 to go look at opulence. It's just that my opulence of choice is an independent bookstore.